The Irish standard., 1887-06-11

And my tears fall bitterly Oyerthe stone,
That covers your golden hair, my pet.
MARSHAL NEY'S Fate.
A committee of learned men and his
torical skeptics, having for years enter
tanned a delusion that a Frenchman
calling himself Peter G. Ney, and Of
6ciating as teacher in various parts of
Maryland and Delaware, was in reality
the celebrated Michael Ney, Napoleon's
favorite marshal, have during the last
couple Of weeks been engaged in post
mortem examination of the remains OF
the mysterious Peter to ascertain wheth-
er his Uranium bore marks of certain
surgical operations to which it Is we'll
known Marshal Ney submitted prior to
his execution in 1915.
AS the story of this pretender has
been at various times published exten-
sively in the American newspapers and
more pretending periodicals and has
been widely reproduced in European
journals, it's explosion at the date affords
opportunity for giving publicity to inter-
esting details touching the family his
tory Of the unfortunate Prince de la
Moskowa, his relatives in America,
persons of wealth and distinction, and
the causes of his decadence and judicial
assassination, which are comparatively
little known in France and entirely so
on this side of the Atlantic.
Ney's relatives in America: A pre-
sumption as to any identity between
Marshal Ney, had his friends in Paris
actually succeeded in effecting his es-
cape. as did those Of Lavalette, from
the prison Of the Luxembourg, and the
Casper House of Maryland could have
been dissipated through reference to
single circumstance. Landing upon
our soil fugitive from political perse-
cution, Marshal Ney had no cause for
concealment nor fear for his safety, in
asmuch as at the time of his arrival he
would have been welcomed by his rela-
tives, some among them native born,
children of man of distinction and
influence, whose own head had been
saved from the axe of the guillotine
through exercise of the political power
of this State. Through marriage Mar
shafN Ney had become nephew Of Ed
mond C. Genet, one of the most extra
ordinary men of his time, better known
in America as 1.-The Citizen Genet" a
title assumed as appropriate to his Of
fetal position as Minister of the French
Republic in this country. an appoint.
ment conferred upon him by the Giron-
dists at the instigation Of Madame Ro-
land. Strange to say, the only two of
the Gi1ondists not perishing upon the
scaffold died natural deaths in the State
of New York. Thomas Paine, whose
life has been accidentally saved through
an error of the jailers in marking the
wrong door, died in Greenwich village,
in the house of the widow Of the man
who had involuntarily oficiated as his
proxy for decapitation, while the Citi-
zen Genet demised at Jamaica, l.. l.,
thoroughly abused by our newspapers
under misapprehension Of having been
q sans culotte and Jacobin, clamoring
for his own death.
Ney's happy marriage: Although en-
tering the army as a private Marshal
Ney was of wealthy parents and was
possibly the only one Of Napoleon's
marshals marrying into family Of the
old aristoc1acy, for the generals had
been courtiers, dwelling at Versailles
and attached to the royal household.
The eldest Mademoiselle Genet was the
companion and bosom friend of the un-
fortunate Mary Antoinette, at whose
request she married Mons. Compan, the
Kings secretary, and under this name
has been world-renowned from her
memoirs. Her sister, the mother-in-
law of Ney. was likewise attached to
the Queens person, upon whose execu-
tion both ladies were denounced and inn
prisoned. Having as a fellow prisoner
Josephine Beautharnais, subsequently
the Empress, Madam Compan became
her friend and adviser, and so far en-
joyed the confidence Of Bonaparte as to
be appointed by him guardian of his
step-children afterward, the Queen Hor-
tense, mother of Napoleon Ill, and the
Prince Eugene, Viceroy of Italy. Hav-
ing married her favorite niece, it was
but natural that Ney should enjoy the
influence Madam Compan undo oubtedly
& could exertsat the, imperial court, for